INHABITANTS OP PERU. 



of the women, singing, and making a variety of ridiculous 

 contortions. The dancers then turn the back on each other, 

 and separate by degrees. Finally, they all whirl to the right 

 with one accord, and run impetuously to meet each other face 

 to face. The rencounter which ensues, appears indecent to 

 those who fancy that the outward a6tions of these negroes are 

 equally consequent with ours. This simple and rude exercise 

 constitutes all their recreation, their balls, and country-dances, 

 without any other rules or figures beside those of caprice. They 

 are diverted, however ; and when the festival is at an end the 

 impressions are obliterated. It would be well if our delicate 

 balls, the stile of which we have borrowed from the English, 

 French, and Germans, were not produ6tive of any other con- 

 sequences except those of lassitude and a waste of time. It is 

 to be lamented that they are most frequently the vehicle of 

 amorous intrigues, and the centre of whispers and scandals. 



It has already been observed, that the music of the negroes 

 is extremely disagreeable. Their principal instrument is the 

 drum, which is usually made of a flask of leather, or of 3 

 wooden cylinder hollow withinside. When it is formed in 

 this manner, it is not beaten with sticks, but struck with the 

 hands. They have likewise small flutes, which they inflate 

 with the nostrils. A kind of music is produced by striking the 

 jaw-bone of a horse, or ass, dried in the sun, and having the 

 teeth moveable. The friction of a smooth stick, against ano- 

 ther cut transversely on the superficies, has a similar efFedl. 

 The instrument which affords some degree of melody, is that 

 which they name marimba. It is composed of a number of 

 thin, long, and narrow tablets, adjusted at the distance of 

 four lines from the mouths of several dry and empty calabashes, 



Q^q 2 which 



